Mobile payments up 150% in US

MANILA, Philippines - US mobile bill payment usage has doubled from eight million online households in 2012 to 16 million last year.

According to the 2013 Billing Household Survey, smartphone owners were the principal drivers, where mobile bill payment surged by 150 percent between 2012 and 2013.

Consumers who pay bills using their mobile device do so primarily for convenience (70 percent), anytime access (55 percent) and time savings (49 percent), the survey found.

Fiserv said 83 percent of US consumers use two or more channels to pay bills each month. The average number of bill payment methods that consumers use expanded by 10 percent from 2012 to 2013, reaching an average of 3.2 channels each month.

While the number of US online households that pay a bill by check declined from 61 percent in 2012 to 53 percent in 2013, the number of households using mobile devices and tablets for bill payment gained ground, resulting in the higher number of channels used overall.

“Many consumers continue to use established methods of paying bills like checks, phone or in-person payments, and two out of three believe it is important for billers to offer multiple ways to pay bills,” Fiserv said. “The Gen Y effect is evident here as 74 percent of Gen Y respondents consider offering multiple payment options important, compared to 67 percent of all respondents.”

Gen Y consumers use the mobile channel to manage billing and payment more than other generations. As more of these young consumers take on bill payment responsibility, a growing Gen Y effect will influence how billers are innovating and offering services based on changing consumer preferences.

It is important for billers to have a mobile-optimized website for bill payment as mobile-optimized bank and biller websites are the most popular choice when paying bills with a smartphone.

It noted, however, that apps for billers and banks are also popular and grew rapidly in 2013.